Hardening herself against the soft touches, she just shrugged. “Starving me, locking me out in the snow without proper clothes, making me sleep in a room that was hotter thanthe air you were pumping into that cell, whippings, canings, beatings, those were all things I knew how to deal with before I even knew what the word torture was. Ridge’s favorite was locking me in an old well. There was a cover, so it was completely pitch black, and the bottom was mud, urine, feces, and a little water. I can handle whatever you throw at me.”
Although she jutted her chin out, daring them to disagree, daring them to do their worst, she wasn't prepared for the horrified looks on the faces of the men in the room. Even Dragon looked queasy over what she’d just told them.
Of course, she’d always known what her brother had done to her was sick and twisted, but it had just been normal for her as a kid. Part of her life as much as schoolwork and chores. Seeing the horror on the faces of the men who had abducted her with the express purpose of inflicting pain on her, somehow made her childhood abuse seem that much worse.
Spurred on by her righteous anger, Rose shoved down the blanket, ignoring Steel’s protests, and lifted her hips enough to wriggle down her pajama bottoms, exposing the lines of scars up her thighs.
“I didn't get my ability to do first aid through altered DNA. My brother made me learn to put in stitches by practicing on myself. I learned to run fast by being forced to run laps in the middle of the night. I had to start over if I tripped or was pushed so hard that I threw up. I strengthened my muscles with chores that were too hard for a little girl to do alone, but I knew I had no choice so I figured it out.”
Shivering even though her body had mostly warmed back up, Rose was breathing hard as she tugged her pajama bottoms back into place. She tucked the blanket around herself again, using it as a shield of sorts even though the thin material offered no protection from anything but the cold.
“There is nothing you can do that will break me, and nothing that will get Ridge to care enough to risk his own life for mine.” Taking a deep breath, she said the words fearlessly, even though she didn't want them to be true. “So you may as well just kill me and get it over and done with.”
With a growl, Steel reached out and grabbed her, hauling her into his lap. Around her, displeased grunts echoed from the others, and when she looked around at all of them, she was totally confused as to why they cared so much about killing her all of a sudden.
“How many times do I have to say you aren't dying, little ladybug?” Steel demanded.
Bracing the palm of her good hand on his chest, she balanced her hand with the cast awkwardly beside it and tried to ignore the fact that with her legs spread over his thick thighs, her center was pressed directly against the bulge in his pants. “I don’t believe you,” she said simply. “I don’t think your buddy Dragon buys that I was abused by my brother, and he wants to kill me. I heard him say it after you got me out of the basement.”
“Dragon is an idiot who messed up with the woman he likes because of our plan to go after you,” Steel explained, and since Dragon didn't disagree, she assumed that was true.
“Using me won't work,” she reminded them.
“We get that now.”
“You won't let me go.”
“Can't,” Steel corrected. “Someone broke into your house. If we send you back home, your brother will have you picked up and taken to him. My guess is he’ll try to torture you for information on us, see if you know where we took you.”
Yep, that sounded like what her brother would do.
But where did that leave her?
“I was going to take you home,” Steel told her, one of his large hands hesitating before palming her cheek. “When you did yourimpressive little gymnastics trick, I was cooking you dinner. I was going to lace it with sedatives, wait until you passed out, then we were taking you home.”
“I want to believe that,” Rose said softly, finding that it was true, she desperately wanted there to be at least one person in her life who she could depend on and trust. “But I still don’t know where that leaves me now. You say you don’t want to kill me, but you also say that you won't take me home and let me go back to my life. Which means the only other option is that you intend to keep me here as your prisoner indefinitely.”
Chapter
Twelve
December 28th
10:23 P.M.
Steel liked the idea of the little ladybug forced to stay there, his sweet, strong, crazy little captive, far too much to be considered normal.
Of its own accord, his thumb drifted to the crease of her lips, then dragged along her bottom lip hard enough that desire flared in the forest green eyes staring back at him. His little ladybug didn't even seem to know how to process touch that didn't cause her at least a bite of pain.
It made him want to rediscover a part of his old self that would have worshipped her body with gentle caresses and featherlight touches. Now he wasn't sure that part of him still existed.
Maybe it was a good thing his little ladybug responded more to pain.
“Not indefinitely,” he told her.
Those words had her gaze widening. “You're going to let me go?”
He really had become a monster because Steel wanted so badly to tell her no. That he was going to keep her forever. That she was his now, and he was never going to let her go.
